Richardsons donate $8.1M to create CSU design center

FORT COLLINS — Colorado State University on Tuesday announced that Nancy and Curt Richardson, founders of OtterBox and Blue Ocean Enterprises, have donated $8.1 million to create a multi-disciplinary design center at the school.

The 40,000-square-foot facility will be built on Lake Street, east of where the new on-campus football stadium is being built now. Dubbed the Richardson Design Center, the building is slated to open in January 2019.

The design center will provide creative space for departments and programs across the CSU campus, including interior design, design and merchandising, landscape architecture, art, engineering, product development, entrepreneurship and construction management. It will house design studios, prototype/ideation labs, presentation spaces, classrooms and computer labs.

SPONSORED CONTENT

Exploring & expressing grief

Support groups and events, as well as creative therapies and professional counseling, are all ways in which Pathways supports individuals dealing with grief and loss.

“Design touches everybody, whether they recognize it or not,” Nancy Richardson, a 1982 CSU interior design graduate and longtime supporter of the school, said in a news release. “In our journey as entrepreneurs, Curt and I experienced first-hand the tangible benefits of multidisciplinary project management, and we are enthusiastic about the opportunity to encourage that same approach in design education.”

The full cost of the design center will be $16.5 million. CSU officials said they will continue to fundraise for the project, offering companies and individual donors chances to name interior spaces.

“The Richardson Design Center will position Colorado State University to become an innovative national hub for design-thinking and entrepreneurship,” CSU president Tony Frank said. “Integrating with our exceptional academic programs in design, engineering, business and the arts, it will be a magnet for creativity, where talented students, faculty and industry leaders gather to learn, discover and design together.”